Farewell, Christine
by invaderoperaghost
Summary: Leroux based poem. Erik's thoughts before he dies in a note to Christine. This is my first attempt at phantombased poetry. Please read and review!


Disclaimer: The Phantom of the Opera belongs to Gaston Leroux. I don't own it.

This is my first attempt at phantom-related poetry. I am not very experienced at poetry in general, either. I just got inspired and thought I'd give it a try. I hope that you enjoy it, and please leave a review to let me know what you think.

* * *

When I first looked at you from behind your mirror,

I knew that you could have had no idea

That you were being watched by a man,

A man with the face of a demon,

The body of a skeleton,

The mind of a genius,

And the voice of an angel.

When I called out to you,

Making sure that my voice was everywhere and nowhere,

You believed me to be an angel.

Before I play my requiem,

I wish to reflect on recent events.

How you triumphed in that gala!

Strengthened by my tutelage,

Your voice was allowed to soar!

That very same day,

Joseph Buquet, the chief stagehand, stumbled upon my torture chamber,

My ingenious, hexagonal, mirrored invention which drives men mad,

With which I amused the little sultana-

How I used to make her laugh in those rosy hours! But enough of that!

I wish to forget those days-

Anyway, it was not my fault!

Buquet killed himself!

True, my torture chamber led him to it,

But it was not my fault that he chose

To use that rope

Which I conveniently left by the painted iron tree.

That day I played my requiem for him.

Do not cry, my dear!

It was not my fault!

I remember the first time that I brought you to my home,

My little home in the fifth cellar beyond Lake Averne-

How frightened you were!  
You realized that I was not an angel.

I was not even a ghost or a genius!

I was a man, a man who loved you.

When you asked me to play you something from my masterpiece,

From my Don Juan Triumphant,

You did not realize

That my music has the power to scorch even the purest of souls.

Now my opera is waiting in my coffin,

Waiting for me.

It will not be waiting long!

Soon I will play my requiem for myself,

But not before I remember some more.

When you tore my mask from my face,

My horrible demonic face

That not even a mother could love-

How angry you made me!

Then you knew that a corpse loved you!

A living cadaver loved you!

How could you ever love me now?

How could I ever let you leave me now?

Eventually I did allow you to go.

I let you go to the masked ball,

And I followed you there.

I went the masquerade as the Red Death,

And I didn't even need a mask!

You kept coming back,

And I began to trust you a little bit more,

Enough to let you see that young nobleman,

That Vicomte de Chagny,

Because you said he'd be leaving in a month.

But you lost my trust that one night,

That night when you let him kiss you

And agreed to run away with him.

Did you know that your poor unhappy Erik was watching you even then,

Clinging to the statue of Apollo and his lyre?

Or did you believe that the glowing light of my eyes

Belonged to a bird, or perhaps a pair of stars?

That is certainly what your Vicomte thought,

That night that he shot at me!

He must have believed that I was a cat!

After all, ghosts don't bleed, do they?

I remember later when I whisked you off the stage-

How shocked the audience was!

I shouldn't have left you alone in my home, half-chloroformed.

Perhaps I should have known that you would try to kill yourself,

But do you really hate me that much?

The next time I left I was careful to tie you securely to a chair.

It's not my fault that that poor chap came by

And fell victim to the siren's trap!

It's not my fault at all!

When I returned I played his requiem.

(It's strange, how familiar the poor chap looked!)

Why are you looking at me like that, my dear?

I am all wet? Ha!

That is because it is raining!

It is raining on the shore of Lake Averne!

That is why I am all wet.

I played his requiem in front of you,

And I knew that those in the torture chamber heard it, too.

Yes, I knew that they were there, and I knew that you knew.

The way you begged me to untie you

And then rushed to find the key

Quite gave it away, my dear!

Now you were faced with a choice:

Would you rather hear the wedding mass

Or listen to the requiem again?

I gave you until 11 o'clock to decide

Whether you would have us all blown up or become my bride.

You were presented with a grasshopper and a scorpion,

Both made of bronze,

To represent your choice.

If you chose the scorpion, we could go happily to a church

And hear my wedding mass performed for us.

We could be happy together!

We could take walks by the shore of Lake Averne,  
and maybe even get a house on the surface of the world, above the ground!

If you chose the grasshopper, it would hop jolly high!

It would hop jolly high,

And take with it into the sky a quarter of Paris.

Come now, my dear, it is time to make your choice!

The hour of life or death is nigh,

And we mustn't keep the Parisians waiting,

The Parisians who are currently watching an opera right above our heads!

You turned the scorpion, hoping to save the peoples' lives.

There was a moment of silence between us,

And then, the flow of water into the torture chamber drenched the gunpowder.

You had saved the lives of a quarter of the city,

But those in the torture chamber

Would soon be up to their necks in water.

You pleaded for me to save the lives of your fiancé and of my friend, the daroga,

But I laughed and told you that

You needn't have two fiancés!

But then you swore that you were willing to become my _living_ wife!

You wouldn't kill yourself!

I believed you, for you swore it upon your very salvation!

So I saved them, the Vicomte and my friend, the daroga.

I brought the daroga back to his flat,

But I knew that I couldn't do the same with your fiancé.

So I chained him up in a dungeon where no one would ever hear him scream.

But then, when I returned, you…

You let me kiss your forehead,

Something that no woman had ever let me do!

And I cried, and you cried with me!

That was when I knew that I had to let you leave,

And let your Vicomte leave, too.

So I went back to the dungeon and brought him back to my house.

(The lover of trapdoors never needs a key!)

When I returned, I gave you a golden ring,

And told you to come back someday to bury me with it.

And then…

You kissed _me_ on my forehead!

Soon, my dear, you will fulfill your promise.

All of the arrangements have been made.

By now, the daroga will have placed my obituary in the Époque.

I trust that you will come soon to dig my grave for me.

I am playing my requiem now, my dear.

I can feel that my broken heart is slowly beating its final beats.

After I finish playing my requiem mass,

I will lie down in my coffin with my masterpiece

And sing myself to sleep-

And this sleep will last for eternity.

I hope that you will find this note,

Written in read ink,

The last note that I will ever write.

As I am playing my requiem for myself, I finally feel at peace.

Farewell, my dear Christine.


End file.
